Is it hard for you to listen? It has been for me. Here are some of the reasons that interfered with my ability to listen that I describe in JOURNEY GIRL: Steps in Secrets and Sanctuary:
Listening for me, was for a long time, a highly multi-tasked endeavor. As I reflect on why this has been a problem for me….I ask myself why it was so hard for me to listen and speak in my childhood and extending well into my adult years. Here is what I see myself doing that impaired my ability to geninely listen for a very long time.
Listening was hard for me because:
- I had to defend…my point of view.
- I had to prepare…for what others wanted me to say.
- I had to shield…myself from blame.
- I had to protect…myself from negative judgment.
- I had to know…what others wanted to hear.
- I had to shape…my response to keep peace..
The list goes on in my ending reflection in Chapter Six of my book. Yet my commitment to learning truly how to listen unlocked the mysteries and misunderstandings around the silence my family kept about the death of my birth mother.
I completed writing my memoir during the COVID Pandemic year of 2020, although the story was being written in my heart for a very much longer time than that. JOURNEY GIRL was published in September 2020 by Balboa Press, a division of House of Hay Publishing. I learned a lot about growing up in a healthy and spiritual way from Louise Hay’s writings and so I am very proud to be an author in her publishing empire.
But I am prouder yet, that I continue to learn how to listen in an increasingly loud and divisive culture where everyone just seems to want to be right and force that upon others instead of being able to listen to each other. I also studied with another evolutionary leadership icon in 2011-2012 where that type of listening was modeled and posited it could become the new world and institution model of leadership. I see no evidence that this is happening and it is now 2021. But it needs to.
Staying true to a calling I felt deep within is my way of contributing to world peace through making the story of JOURNEY GIRL available to the public. Each chapter begins with an “Island of Silence” for the reader, where they take a momentary pause in quietness, where they can access their inner peace and wisdom. This is the very place I believe world peace begins. …and time is being wasted in the noise and disruption of division.
Everyone has their own JOURNEY. And everyone’s JOURNEY is assisted by inner peace and oneness.
Napkinwriter 